20 Minute Korean Ground Turkey Bowls

Talk about a super fast, super easy, super yummy dinner 👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼. This right here, friends! If there were tickets to the land of dinners that are zero fuss but level ten deliciousness, come together in under thirty minutes, and stay yummy for days in your fridge? That ticket would have “20 Minute Korean Ground Turkey Bowls” stamped across the front in big, fat, obnoxious letters.

There’s basically two steps to this recipe…Step one: make sauce. Step two: brown turkey and pour in sauce. Doneskies. Hello there, fantastic, flavorful, fast…I have an accidental “f” theme going here that I feel like I need to stick with…nope sat here for five minutes trying to think of another “f” adjective and failed. Freaky delicious? Sure.

Who doesn’t need some of these ridiculously fast dinner/lunch ideas in their back pocket? This one is especially useful if ground turkey is something you always keep around your house as a kitchen staple. I almost always have some in my fridge or freezer, and if that’s your situation too, you probably will have all the ingredients to make this quick and easy meal on the fly whenever you’re feelin’ saucy. Referring to the sauce in this recipe…get your mind out of the gutter!

The sauce is made up of common kitchen ingredients, too. Except maybe the fresh ginger, but I ALWAYS have fresh ginger root in my freezer because it lasts forever in there and is ready to go for any meal that calls for just a little knob.

This is such a great family friendly meal, and it’s a wonderful way to get some nice lean and healthy protein into your family’s bellies in a fun way that they’ll love! You can eat it just like this over rice or quinoa, or you can load it up with some extra veggies. Whatever your Korean-turkey-bowl loving heart desires ❤️.

Lets talk about this sauce. This recipe really is all about the sauce – it’s savory, it’s slightly sweet, it’s garlicky, it’s gingery, it has a subtle heat from the chili flakes, and it cooks into the ground turkey and gives the lean (sometimes stereotypically bland) meat SO much delicious Asian flavor. So, the sauce – what’s in it?

• Soy sauce
• Brown sugar
• Fresh ginger
• Garlic
• Red pepper flakes

That’s it. You just whisk all that goodness together and you’re sauce is ready to go! From there, you just have to work on your turkey. The extent of which requires adding a little bit of coconut oil to a skillet, browning your turkey with some salt and pepper, adding your sauce, and stirring until your turkey has finished cooking and the sauce has thickened. Bam. YOU DUN.

And that’s all there is to it! My favorite way to eat this is over white rice, and I do equal parts of meat and rice (1/2 cup of each), but you can health it up even more and throw it over some brown rice or quinoa. YAS FOREVER.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! If you read any of my posts leading up to the end of December, you know I was freaking out slightly about traveling with Ford (my 5 month old little boy) for the first time ever. I was worried he was going to be sleepless and cranky and screaming his cute little head off the entire plane ride to North Carolina while I received dagger glares from nearby sleepy passengers. Yikes.

Turns out it wasn’t a huge deal! I mean, I will say that packing and traveling with an infant feels like you are packing and traveling with fifteen extra people rather than just ONE extra, so that part is a little chaotic. I mean you’d think we were packing to move to North Carolina for six months rather than traveling there for one week based on the size of my suitcase. Also…baby clothes are tiny. Why you take up so much space, baby stuff?! Whatup with that?

The plane ride itself wasn’t bad. He was bored for some of it and was very wiggly and wanting to move around and change things up, but he didn’t cry. So…stressful? Yes. Chaotic? Yes. Miserable with a crying baby the whole time? No, thank goodness.

The hardest part was the fact that he straight up didn’t sleep on any of our travel days – like I’m talking collectively an hour of sleep throughout the whole day – which led to him having a little bit of a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep at night, but he was a trooper! It’s good to be home, but it was so much fun spending a week with family and friends!

I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and New Years, too!

This recipe is 4 Freestyle SmartPoints per serving!

20 Minute Korean Ground Turkey Bowls

★★★★★

5 from 6 reviews

• Author: Annie Chesson
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 10 mins
• Total Time: 20 minutes
• Yield: 6 servings 1x

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 20 ounces lean ground turkey – I used 93% (my grocery store sells the 20 oz ground turkey containers, but if yours doesn’t, you can be less specific in amount. A pound or a pound and a half will work fine)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (or Tamari if gluten free)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon coconut oil
• Green onions (just the sliced green tops) and sesame seeds as optional garnishes!

Instructions

1. Make your sauce: Add all sauce ingredients (soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, and pepper flakes) into a bowl and whisk well to combine
2. Brown your turkey: In a large skillet over medium high – high heat, add your coconut oil. When hot, add your turkey and season with salt and pepper. Break up with a wooden spoon or spatula until turkey has begun to brown but is not yet cooked through
3. Add your sauce to the turkey and cook until the turkey is cooked through and the sauce has thickened/cooked into the turkey – this will only take a few minutes
4. Serve over rice (white or brown) or quinoa and top with green onions and sesame seeds if desired!

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1/2 cup
• Calories: 182
• Sugar: 9 g
• Sodium: 74 mg
• Fat: 7 g
• Carbohydrates: 11 g
• Fiber: 0 g
• Protein: 21 g
• Cholesterol: 0 mg

If you make this or any of my other recipes, be sure to Instagram it and hashtag #thegarlicdiaries!

In the mood for more yummy Asian meals? Check these out:

Teriyaki Chicken Noodle Bowls

Rainbow Veggie Rice Noodle Stir-Fry

Easy Korean Flank Steak